Emerson v. Dart et al

Filing 112

MEMORANDUM Order: For the reasons stated in this memorandum order, plaintiff's Fed.Rule Civ.P.59(e) motion to reconsider order of May 17, 2017 107 is denied. Signed by the Honorable Milton I. Shadur on 6/22/2017:Mailed notice(clw, )

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
EASTERN DIVISION

PAULA EMERSON,
Plaintiff,
v.
THOMAS J. DART, et al.,
Defendants.

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Case No. 14 C 5898

MEMORANDUM ORDER
This is one of two cases, in each of which a motion by a prisoner plaintiff seeks to rehash
his or her unsuccessful efforts for relief from a state court conviction and the resulting sentence
that he or she is serving, has landed on this Court's desk at the same time. In this instance Paula
Emerson ("Emerson") has filed a "Plaintiff's Fed. Rule Civ. P. 59(e) Motion To Reconsider
Order of May 17, 2017 Granting Defendants' Motion For Summary Judgment" (the "Motion"), in
which her attempted attack calls into play the principle stated in felicitous terms more than three
decades ago by Judge Dortch Warriner in Above the Belt, Inc. v. Mel Bohannan Roofing, Inc.,
99 F.R.D. 99, 101 (E.D. Va. 1983):
The motion to reconsider would be appropriate where, for example, the Court has
patently misunderstood a party, or has made a decision outside the adversarial
issues presented to the Court by the parties, or has made an error not of reasoning
but of apprehension. A further basis for a motion to reconsider would be a
controlling or significant change in the law or facts since the submission of the
issue to the Court. Such problems rarely arise and the motion to reconsider
should be equally rare.
Here Emerson's counsel has failed that test. His reassertion of the earlier contentions
made in response to Emerson's motion for summary judgment is no more persuasive than those

contentions were the first time around, when this Court then issued its memorandum opinion and
order granting defendants' summary judgment motion and dismissed the Complaint and this
action with prejudice (Dkt. No. 104). Accordingly Emerson's current Motion (Dkt. No. 107) is
denied.

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Milton I. Shadur
Senior United States District Judge
Date: June 22, 2017

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